


Wanted

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Craigslist, F/M, Meet the Family, Multi, Thanksgiving Dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: When Marie answered a specific ad on Craigslist, asking for a fake date for Thanksgiving, she didn't really know what she was getting into.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [messofthejess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/gifts).



Marie felt like the Thanksgiving version of a Grinch. Really, she was usually infinitely more cheerful. It wasn’t always the easiest, since Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly the best time of year for her, considering she’d moved to America on her own when she was only 15 years old, about 13 years ago. As an immigrant, she didn’t exactly feel American, and with her family back in Sweden, well, going home for the four days she had off from her job didn’t seem particularly likely. But, she always tried to look on the bright side.

It just turned out that the bright side was about as illuminated as a sensory deprivation chamber.

Or, in other words: She was broke. Broke as a joke. More broke than a joke. The joke was her, really. Her fridge had been empty for two days and she’d been eyeing her couch for sustenance when her best friend, Azusa, finally texted her back and informed her that she should try to go to a friend’s home for Thanksgiving. Or, worst case scenario, Azusa could hook her up.

Usually, Azusa hooked her up by inviting her to her family’s house for Thanksgiving, where she was around her cousin Tsubaki who made the best pumpkin pie Marie had ever had in her entire life, and her girlfriend Liz who always brought her sister Patti, the two of them usually asking if she wanted some weed, no charge. 

Her job did regular drug tests, but she always appreciated the offer. 

This year, however, Azusa was swinging by her own girlfriend’s house for Thanksgiving and Nygus’s family didn’t really know Marie. 

Just her luck. 

Now, she was stuck at home with bare shelves and Thanksgiving was tomorrow. 

She was fucked. 

She’d already checked with everyone she’d be comfortable hanging around with for longer than three hours, and she came up with zilch. Zero. Nunya. All her coworkers expressed sorrow: either they were already at their family’s homes, their family was already over, or it was just too last minute. She’d already asked well over 20 people.

The time for miracles was now. Sighing, she reached for her phone, finding Azusa’s contact number and deciding to text her. If she said that she had a hookup for her, well, Marie believed it. Azusa once managed to raise well over 5 thousand dollars when Marie complained about not being able to pay tuition. The woman was magic.

Marie’s brows furrowed as she looked over the ad. She usually avoided Craigslist, assuming it was all just creepers or false offers that would do little more than waste her time or leave her in a ditch somewhere. But Azusa she trusted, and the woman likely had the skills to hack into the Pentagon had she so chose, so Marie figured it was safe.

 

> Fake Thanksgiving Fiance/Girlfriend For My Best Friend                   Age: 28
> 
> Hey all! I know this is under Men Seeking Women, but I’m not the man in question! Looking to hook my best friend up with a woman (anywhere from 25-30) who’s chill with being his fake date for a weekend. Already asked all my female friends but they’re lesbians and my falsetto isn’t too convincing. Will pay in good food as well as compensate financially for travel and time!   
>    
>  Warning: kind of religious Jewish family but you don’t have to be Jewish. Pretty liberal. Need not apply if you’re a Republican. :D
> 
> -Do NOT contact me with unsolicited offers. 

Marie groaned, trying to weigh the pros and cons. After a moment, she rolled her eyes and went to her closet, trying to find the most conservative skirt she owned. 

Well.

What did she really have to lose, right?

* * *

Marie was starting to wonder what the odds were. Exponentially unlikely.

Or, rather, likely: considering she had the distinct feeling that she’d just been set up. Damnit, she should have known when she rechecked the time the ad was posted and realized it was way too recent to be anything but a set up between Azusa and whoever the fuck had posted it.

Which, she didn’t know at the time, but now had the information that it was one Spirit Albarn, High School Prom King and College Frat Boy Extraordinaire, had made an ad for his best friend. One Frank Enstein, chess team captain, founder of the science club, and current head surgeon at the local hospital (at TWENTY-EIGHT).

As well as her crush all through high school AND college.

Marie shifted in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs as she blinked at Spirit from behind her Starbucks cup. This was, she supposed, some sort of interview.

She had a feeling she already had the job when Spirit walked in and threw his arms out yelling, “Marie Mjolnir! As I live and breathe! Have you gotten more lovely since the last I saw you?” with a wink. Now, he was only grinning at her as they sat across from each other at a Starbuck’s table.

“So, what made you answer the ad?” he asked, conversationally. They were waiting for Stein to show up, he’d informed her, and Spirit had sent him at least twelve text message since he sat down alone.

“I’m broke,” she answered, plainly. “I’m broke, my fridge is empty, and I took a trust fall with Azusa.”

“Ah, Queen of the Committee. How is she and Nygus?”

“I assume you’d know, considering the two of you are in cahoots,” she accused, tempted to point at him dramatically. Spirit threw a hand over her chest, where his heart would be, and made an incredulous expression.

“Why, me? How could you be so cruel as to insinuate such a heinous thing?”

“Because the odds are stacked against you, Albarn,” Marie hissed, leaning forward. “You and Azusa were the ones who tried to hook us up in high school.”

“Ah, yes. Plans A through Q. All failures, I’m afraid.”

Marie rolled her eyes, leaning back heavily. “Were there really that many?”

“’Fraid so! We finished R through Z in college. And he never caught on.”

“Yes, well, this isn’t you trying to play matchmaker, _again_ , is it?”

“You wound me with your distrust, Marie!” Spirit said, setting his mug of hot chocolate down. “But, regardless of what you think, no. Stein’s family has been pressuring him to bring someone home for years now and it hit a boil about a month ago. He told me to try to figure something out. I was gonna throw Blair at him.”

“Blair might have thrown _herself_ at him,” Marie muttered.

“Not unless she checks with Risa and Arisa first. They’re all together, now.”

“No big surprises there,” Marie replied, dryly, and Spirit crooked a grin at her.

“Jealous?”

“ _No_ ,” Marie emphasized.

“Really?” Spirit asked. “Because it seems like everyone else is getting together save for you. But if Stein doesn’t wanna take you home, I’d be happy to stuff  _your_ turkey for yoOW-”

Marie casually leaned over and knocked Spirit’s hot chocolate onto his lap, causing him to yelp and reach for a mass of tissues, eeping out “Hot! Ouch! HOT.”

Marie only smiled at him serenely, and the sight itself, complete with Spirit’s squawking, covered up the sound of the bell ringing to indicate someone had walked in, and it was only when she heard dry, almost monotonous chuckles that she whirled around.

“Whatever he did, I’m sure he deserved that,” a masculine voice called out, so close to her, and Marie sucked in a harsh breath, finally taking in the sight of her crush a solid half a decade later.

Good lord, he’d gotten tall as _fuck._ The man was like a skyscraper with how he towered over almost everything in the vicinity, so looming he could probably stretch his arms over his head and touch the ceiling. He’d been tall when they graduated together, tall enough that she reached about his shoulder, but it seemed that he must have hit another growth spurt because she was in heels and if she stood up, she’d likely only reach the center of his sternum, and her shoes were a solid four inches tall. But that in of itself wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

Maybe she hadn’t looked through her yearbook often enough, but he’d gotten _handsome._ She swore his eyes were greener than ever before, his prematurely silver hair brushing into those eyes. She traced her gaze down, past his forever crooked nose since she’d accidentally punched him sophomore year, to the lips she’d imagined kissing for all too long, to a strangely well defined jawline with just enough stubble to-

“Marie?” Stein asked, cutting her thoughts off, and she shook her head, snapping her gaze to his eyes again, coloring slightly.

“Yeah?”

“I asked if you were the unfortunate soul Spirit had managed to rope into his ridiculous scheme.”

“Um- uh, yeah. That would be me.”

“Well,” Stein said, something unreadable and smug in his expression, “that certainly worked out better for me than I could have imagined.”

“Hm?” she asked, completely ignoring Spirit in the background. “In- uh, in what way?” Was her heart beating harder or faster or something? Good lord, Marie thought. ‘You are a grown woman! Get a grip!’

“I know you,” Stein remarked plainly, and it shouldn’t have made her heart skip a beat but it did. Marie took a deep breath. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was flirting with her.

“Yeah? Well, it’s been a few years, buddy. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you used to.” And, maybe she was flirting back. Just a little. Not much at all. No sir. Not Marie.

The truth was that they had been pretty close friends when they were teenagers. So much so that everyone thought they were dating even if they weren’t. The student body had come up with the most cliché scenario imaginable since Marie had been a cheerleader, peppy and happy and bright, they assumed that Stein was the nerd who was meant to pine for her. Of course, it wasn’t like that. She was the one who pined, and he was the one who never noticed. Even through college. And they’d fallen away from each other just a few days before graduation, when she’d thought she could confess to him and kiss him and then run away after she realized he didn’t kiss her back.

And, from there, it was a position that opened up with an agency that brought her to Australia for several years. She only returned to Death City when a higher position opened up.

Of course, the rent was exponentially higher, something she hadn’t expected, and she had been living paycheck to paycheck until the bonus kicked in.

So, here she was, face to face with the man she’d had a crush on for years, and the last time she’d seen him, it was with a kiss. And he still made her feel that same damn fluttering in her gut as he did five years ago.

“Well, perhaps in the four days at my family’s home, I’ll see how true that is,” he said, and Marie swallowed hard, smiling t him.

Four days pretending to be in a relationship with her (ex???)crush?

 

Someone end her, now.

* * *

Freeze.

One might wonder how, just a few days into meeting Stein’s family, and only a few days more than that after meeting him again for the first time in five years, she was making out with him with his hand up her skirt as she scrunched for space on the dusty racecar bed he’d once occupied as a child.

She was seriously doing this. She was _seriously_ doing this. She swore this counted as sacrilegious under several principals, considering his family had stepped out to go to synagogue and here she was, moaning away as he massaged her thigh, hitching her legs up around his bare torso.

Rewind back a couple of days. 

* * *

 

“You look fine,” Stein remarked, for the third time since they’d gotten to the front door, but Marie pulled her blouse up again, regardless.

“Your mother is a Rabbi,” she hissed. “Which you failed to tell me until we were in the car going eighty miles on the highway for three hours.”

Stein shrugged. “It didn’t strike me as important.”

“When Spirit told me that your family was religious, I didn’t think he meant it in that way!”

“He also informed you that they are liberal. My mother will be less concerned with your neckline and more with the fact that I won’t die alone. Or so she thinks,” he muttered at the end, and Marie sighed heavily.

“Did anyone tell you that the whole sulky broody thing only works if you’re sixteen?” she snarked, and Stein smirked down at her.

“Works in what way? To entice you? Is that why you had a crush on me when we were children?” he asked, and his smirk turned into a sharp, teasing grin. Marie sputtered, almost dropping her purse.

“I-“

But it was too late. Lightning fast, his hand came to her lower back, cupping it delicately just as the door swung open and a tall, elegant woman stood in the doorway, looking ready to throw her arms around Stein when she noticed Marie standing there as well, blushing.

She gasped.

“Franky! You- you brought someone?” she gaped. “I never thought the day would come.”

“It’s good to see you as well, mother.”

“Good shmood! Come in, dear,” she said, smiling widely and ushering the two of them inside. “The two of you are so precious, oh goodness! Hello!” she said, overenthusiastic as she whirled upon Marie, shutting the door behind her. “I’m Golda! And you are?”

Marie blinked at her for a moment, wide-eyed. “Um- Marie. Marie-“

“Mjolnir?” Golda finished, brows raising as she turned to look at Stein. “That girl you used to be in love with when you were a boy?”

Now, it was Stein’s turn to go red, and Marie’s lower lip dropped down, watching as his ears blushed.

Oh, how the tables turn.

He muttered something that sounded like a yes, and Golda smiled even more widely. “Well! It’s about time! I’m glad you could get together with her before you had to sit shiva for me,” she joked, and only then did she throw her arms around both of them.

Marie swore she couldn’t breathe, but she managed to survive just in time for Golda to pull away, making a tisking noise and fixing Stein’s collar.

“I swear-“ Golda started, “you and Solomon. The two of you are always so untidy!”

“Soul is here?” Stein asked, and Golda scowled.

“Oh, I wish people would use his full name.”

“Soul?” Marie asked, looking around. “It doesn’t seem like there’s another soul in here.”

Golda let loose a chortle as Stein groaned at her joke, but his mother was already leading her away. “They’re all in the basement! Wesley-“ at this, Stein groaned, and Golda shot him a look. “Wesley is playing violin so we’ve all come down to listen! It’s a shame Solomon doesn’t want to play the piano. I suppose he just wants to spend time with his little girlfriend.”

“Soul brought someone as well?” Stein asked, following after Golda and Marie.

“Oh, yes! A sweet girl. Maka-“

“Albarn,” Stein finished for her, snickering. “Spirit will have an aneurism. She told him she was spending Thanksgiving with her best friend.”

“Where is Spencer, anyway?” Golda asked, ignoring the implications that Maka had lied to her father. Marie felt lost in all the names.

Stein didn’t even bat an eye at Spirit being called by his real name. “With his new boyfriend. One of them, at least.”

“Oh, how delightful!” Golda commented. “I’m so glad he found someone else after the fallout with his wife.”

“Mother,” Stein said.

“Hmm, dear?”

“Shouldn’t you show us where we can put our bags? They’re in the car.”

“Bags shmags! You should listen to your cousin play violin, first!”

“But-“

Golda opened the door to what Marie assumed would lead down to the basement, and Marie instantly heard the beautiful melody of some concerto or another, making her brows lift. Golda smirked at Stein.

“I’d say your girlfriend would want to listen to this!”

“That’s beautiful!” Marie gasped, and Golda nodded gleefully, walking down the stairs, followed by Marie. If she’d taken a moment to look behind her, she probably would have seen Stein scowling.

* * *

Wes, as Wesley told her to call him, was a hell of a violinist.

And a hell of a flirt, too.

Marie didn’t think that everyone who’d gathered in Stein’s family’s house would be part of an older crowd, or teenagers like Soul and Maka, so she wasn’t expecting to be the only woman over the age of 25 and unmarried.

And Wes? Well, Wes seemed to be on the prowl. Which left a grand total of her to woo.

Marie giggled as he told her another story, the family all making their way back upstairs to mingle and talk and she’d become the center of attention. She’d already been introduced to well over ten people, including Stein’s father, uncle, one narrow-minded grandfather who commented that ‘Couldn’t you have found a nice Jewish girl?’ and at least 6 nieces and nephews. Some of them had dispersed, many of them living just a few blocks away in the German-Jewish neighborhood, but some, including Wes, stayed the night at the house and that left Stein to simply sit beside her and blink blankly.

“So, I tell him- if you don’t play violin, it’s time to get violOUT.”

The entire family either groaned or chuckled, but Wes’s attention was focused on Marie, instead. The virtuoso had noticed her in the crowd minutes after he finished his performance, and had immediately come to introduce himself to her.

He didn’t unglue himself from her side, since.

But, curiously enough, neither had Stein. And the information that Golda divulged earlier, that Stein had liked her as a child, was weighing down on her, making it feel as though electricity was running between the two of them. In a way, she almost felt cheated, that he didn’t tell her. Maybe that was why she was indulging Wes, despite not knowing him.

Because, sure, Wes was an attractive man. Tall. Talented. Charming.

But she was far more interested in Stein. And his reactions to his cousin flirting with her was making her oddly happy. Likely because Stein kept inching close and closer, going so far as to throw an arm over her shoulders.

“Oh, that’s enough, Wes. Maybe we should give Marie a chance to talk? So,” someone, Stein’s aunt, she assumed, turned to her.. “Where did the two of you meet?”

“Well-“ Marie started, but Wes cut her off.

“Momma, you know I just met Marie a few minutes ago,” he said, and she felt Stein twitch in annoyance from beside her as the group laughed easily.

“In High School,” Stein answered, and Golda beamed, swirling around her glass of wine.

“Yes! Boychik had such a crush on her. It was a shame it never amounted to anything back then.”

“Yes,” Stein said, easily, and when she turned to look at him, she could have sworn she’d turned electric under his gaze. “What a shame.”

“But the two of you are finally together now! Don’t let her go, boychik. She’s a good one, I can tell.”

Marie flushed lightly under Stein’s gaze just before Wes coughed and got the attention back on him. 

But she could tell that Stein didn’t look away.

* * *

Marie all but bucked off the bed when he bit beneath her jaw, running his hands beneath her shirt. His touch was freezing on her stomach, but she groaned all the same in pleasure as he nipped his way down.

“Your-“ she gasped. “Your family will be here soo-ooooh-soon-“

“I don’t give a damn,” he remarked, muttering. “Been waiting- since high school- for this-“

Marie moaned softly, biting her nails into his skin as he made his way back to her mouth, running his tongue over her lips, the barbell to his piercing smoothing over her cupid’s bow.

Truthfully, she could pinpoint the turning point to the moment that they _first_ kissed. Because, it seemed, once they made that kind of contact, that was the end for both of them. Sure, Wes had  flirted with her for a solid two days, and the tension between her and Stein only mounted with every glance across the table.

But it was that first kiss that proved her undoing.

* * *

“You know,” Wes had commented casually, “the two of you don’t much act like a couple.”

It froze Marie to the core. She was just sitting around with the rest of Stein’s family the day after awkwardly sharing a bed with Stein the night before, trying to keep herself from touching him, and now being pressed against him.

“Pardon?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Well, Soul and Maka are kissing at every turn-“

“We are also not seventeen year olds,” Stein remarked, his tone practically cutting through his cousin. Wes lifted his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Well, you could have fooled me,” he said, winking at Marie.

“I-“

“Oh, leave them alone, Wes! You know Frank’s not one for affection,” someone said.

“All I’m saying is, if you two got together just a little bit ago, you’d expect to be all over each other.”

“My mother is here,” Stein said coldly.

“Yeah, yeah. I just caught Soul and Maka making out in the bathroom! I’m his brother.”

“Are you questioning the validity of my relationship by basing it off of the fact that I’m not kissing her every moment of the day?”

“Little bit, yeah,” Wes said. "But, hey, if you won't kiss her, I'd be happy to!" and with that, Stein instantly turned in his seat, and his hand came to her cheek, slow and soft, especially for a man who had hands as calloused as his, and when he leaned forward, laying one on her, well, as stupid as it sounded, she could have sworn the world stopped.

* * *

Marie’s heels dug into Stein’s lower back.

That had been that. It took someone telling them to go get a room for them to pull away from each other, it had been so intense. And now she was living it all over again and she swore if she stopped kissing him, or, rather, if he stopped kissing her, she’d slaughter him where he stood.

Marie brought her hands to his hips, grabbing at his belt loops so she could better grind against him, biting his lip.

Okay, so some people might judge her that it took only one reciprocated kiss from a man she’d last seen when she was 18 to have her in his bed, but, in her defense, it was a hell of a kiss. And, really, wasn’t this what she wanted since she was a girl?

But it was getting hard to think. Stein’s family had left what could have been either hours or minutes ago, and she was on edge not just from what he was doing to her, but also the fact that they could walk in any second.

“Frank,” she muttered against his mouth, but he only nipped at her lower lip, his fingers drumming against her hip as he said something back in his native German, pulling away from her so he could make a line down her body, settling on his knees before her.

Actually, Marie thought, to hell with his family.

* * *

Golda was looking at Wes with a brow lifted. “What a coincidence that we got lost, Wesley.”

“Hm? Auntie, I have no idea what you mean!”

“Mmmmmhm. You just want to give those two some time alone, don’t you?”

“Alone to do what?” he asked, innocently, and Golda shook her head.

“Oh, you always act as though I don’t know exactly what you were planning.”

Wes did little more than smile at her, waiting until he hit the red light of yet another traffic stop. They were a good twenty minutes out of the way, and, soon, they’d be twenty more minutes out of the way.

“Oi, you shouldn’t use your phone and drive!” his mother said, taking the moment to pull away from her own frantic texting, trying to figure out just where Soul was.

“Understood, Ma!” Wes said, typing up just a simple response to Spirit before dropping the phone down into one of the cup holders for safety.

Wes couldn’t stop grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thanksgiving!


End file.
